Bing Maps powers Facebook’s new Timeline feature

By Tom Warren, on 22nd Sep 11 7:02 pm with 31 Comments

Microsoft’s Bing Maps will power a new Facebook feature unveiled on Thursday.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed the latest social feature of the world’s biggest social networking site on Thursday. Zuckerberg introduced a Timeline feature to Facebook that will allow users to visualise an individuals entire time on Facebook on one page. The feature works across the standard desktop version of Facebook and Facebook’s mobile apps.

Microsoft’s Bing Maps powers the mapping part of Facebook’s Timeline feature and the recently introduced Facebook Ticker feature. LiveSide noted the use of Bing Maps after TechCrunch posted the following image:

Facebook Bing Maps

Microsoft has been working closely with Facebook for its Bing integration over the past year. The two companies have also worked on Windows Phone, Hotmail, Bing and Windows Live integration. Facebook’s messaging system also uses Microsoft’s Office Web Apps suite. Facebook users can also view Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents in their browser. Zuckerberg has previously described Microsoft’s relationship with Facebook as “really good”. The social networking site introduced a video calling service powered by Skype in July. Microsoft is close to finalizing its acquisition of Skype.he recent deal with Microsoft. Bing’s latest integration with Facebook came in the form of the recently introduced Facebook likes feature. Bing search results include personalised search results based on recommendations from Facebook friends. The two companies have pledged to work together on further products in the future.

  • Frylockns86

    Facebook user’s heads are going to explode – if they haven’t done so already!

  • Anonymous

    Bing Maps > Google Maps

    • http://www.facebook.com/noe.brito Noe Brito

      Trust me, I love Microsoft and Bing, but Bing Maps is not better than Google Maps,not yet at least.

    • Anonymous

      it depends on the place we are talking about… where i live, google, bing and ovi sucks. so i really dont care much about maps, anyway its not something i really use.

      so i cant say google or bing is better. maybe he lives in a place where Bing is really good, but since you aren’t from there you wont know.

    • Anonymous

      Bingo! 

    • Guest

      Agree. Street view is pretty awesome where I live. But the accuracy of Google’s maps can be problematic vs Bing’s. For example, Google will routinely show an address as being several doors away from where it really is, whereas Bing usually shows it correctly.

    • Anonymous

      You know, I mostly agree with you.  But I was surprised this weekend when my wife couldn’t find an address in Google maps.  She was going to try Bing but I told her “well if it isn’t in Google, I doubt Bing has it.  The address must be incorrect.”  She ignored me and tried Bing and sure enough, Bing had it.  Usually I find Google Maps to be more reliable, but this just goes to show that Bing is catching up fast and sometimes has some stuff that Google doesn’t.

    • Tom

      When it comes to address data, it’s not a matter of Bing catching up to Google, but Google catching up to Bing (and other Navteq licensees).

      Bing uses Navteq data, which is the best quality map data for North America, bar none.  Microsoft has been using Navteq data since the late 1990s, with Mappoint.  And with the Microsoft-Nokia alliance, this looks set to continue for the indefinite future.

      Google Maps began life with Navteq, then decided they were too expensive and switched to Tele Atlas data for embedded maps.  Then they decided Navteq was too expensive, and dropped to Tele Atlas for maps.google.com as well.

      Finally, this ended when Google decided that they didn’t want to pay anyone for data.  Instead, Google generated its own data by applying computer-vision algorithms on the road signs captured in their Street View images.  (When this first launched, people were finding OCR errors all over the place.  That’s mostly been fixed by now, as they brought in additional data sources.)

    • Brad

      no.  your wrong.

    • Jinge

      It depends where unfortunatly…
      And still StreetView>StreetSide….

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Viki-Maverick/100002523433166 Viki Maverick

      Ha. Now that was a boner.

    • http://profiles.google.com/apocacrux chris hernandez

      If Bing had public transportation integration and street view I may be more inclined to agree with you.

  • Anonymous

    It’s news like this (and Schmidt’s statement that Google feels a bit threatened by Bing) that makes me want to go by more MSFT stock right now. Keep it headlines coming, MS. Maybe that stock will go up afterall while Ballmer is still CEO

    • Anonymous

      No it won’t because investors see all this R&D spending with no return. $9 billion lost in Online Services. $8.5 billion to Skype for no reason. It’s a disaster of epic proportions. Ballmer is the worst CEO in history.

    • Guest

      No have no way of knowing what the stock will do. So please stfu. Thanks.

    • Benjamin Netanyahu

      You should really go to a Apple news only website. There is a reason this place is called WINrumors. Almost everyone here is interested in Microsoft and we like Microsoft, except for yourself.

    • Anonymous

      Nah, I won’t leave this site to the MSFT kool-aid drinkers. Ya’ll need a daily dose of reality splashed in your faces. Maybe you also want to wipe off that brown from your nose!

    • DanOconnell

      And hey, what else are you going to do? It’s not you have a job or anything.

    • Ehud Olmert

      Hey מטומטם have fun being an iSheep and enjoy your restricted and unproductive iProducts

    • Guest

      S&P is going to low 900′s or even 850. Now is not the time to get long MS or anyone else, except inverse ETFs.

    • Anonymous

      Even if it doesn’t go up, MS stock has a very high dividend yield of 3% which is better than the 30 year yield on US bonds at the moment.  Personally, I’m waiting for iPhone 5 to come out.  I actually hope the media hype and attention will drive MS stock further down, then I’ll buy it up and see it climb after Windows 8 becomes a game changing hit.

  • Anonymous

    I thought you would add this as a news but with all do respect Tom.

    This was pretty obvious.

  • Kingm16

    Even more reasons not to use FaRcebook. How about provide Customer Support that you can really speak to instead of piling on the junk.

    • Anonymous

      Customer support for Facebook?  Are you trying to buy products from them or something?

  • Jinge

    Bing is still missing an anonymous “like” feature, to push up a webpage… 
    Anyway, the most people are using BM, the best will be the service. MS needs to gain marketshare to improve its financial results.

  • http://www.about.me/AngeloGopaul Eingoluq

    Anybody else thinks the timeline looks Metro?

    • Anonymous

      That was my first thought. Metro looks awesome in most places its used.

  • Avatar Roku

    How come there’s no Zune Pass integration with Facebook? Zune was social before social was cool.

    • Candid Calum

      These are my thoughts. I hope it isn’t Microsoft’s fault, but it seems it must be because of all of the other music/media services that are included in Facebook Music. It seems Microsoft are just allowing themselves to slip behind, and I’m absolutely gutted because the Zune software is still much better than Spotify in terms of user experience. What are Microsoft playing at? They should have been involved in Facebook Music.

  • http://doctorwhofan98.wordpress.com/ doctorwhofan98

    My Facebook account doesn’t have the ticker. Any idea of how I can get it?

  • Musagaid

    Nice!